Interplanetary Ambassador
While visiting an alien planet as an ambassador on behalf of the human race, you’re invited to join them for a meal. Part of your training involved being very strictly professional in all social encounters, including both your behavior and your appearance, and it had actually been quite successful.
However, while you were in the middle of having seconds (they had been offered to you, you were very careful not to take any yourself), a member of the council that had been occasionally watching news feeds announced with a bit of a start that according to a report posted mere minutes ago, food from the alien planet was found to be significantly higher in Calories than Earth food, and that humans were advised to take extreme caution with said food. That certainly explains why your shirt has been getting snug…
You decided the best response was to drastically cut back on eating, carefully rationing human supplies until the next shipment arrived. The aliens, though respectful of the decision, were confused about why you were afraid of the sudden weight gain. “If it isn’t offensive to say [Miss/Sir/Mx], your appearance is believed to have improved quite a bit with the weight, and your approval ratings have actually notably risen,” Your alien advisor commented. “If making good appearances is important to this conference, perhaps partaking in the next feast might not hurt?”
By the time that the next shipment of supplies came, you had to put in an order for much, much larger clothes- and your approval rating was at an all-time high. Your sponsors were furious with what they felt was a very unprofessional approach to your duty and demanded your return, saying you’d be replaced with, “someone with much better sense, will, and self-control.”
When you told the aliens that you would be gone by the end of the week and explained the situation, they took offense; you had shown nothing but good manners and had been very open to their culture, and your people’s first response was to be disgusted with that?
It resulted in very heated discussion between your sponsors and the alien ambassadors, but that was simply background noise as some of the locals coaxed you to a back dining hall; perhaps a five course meal could help take everyone’s mind off of things.










